SURREY V WARWICKSHIRE at Lord's (Royal London One-Day Cup Final), 17 SEPTEMBER 2016

Surrey's record in one-day finals at Lord's reads as follows:

Since winning the 40-over final in 2010, Warwickshire have finished runners-up in 2012, and, following the combined expansion to 50 overs and re-naming, runners-up again in 2014. Basically, if it's even even-numbered year, keep an eye out for the Bears in white ball cricket. Their only Twenty20 title came two years ago - again, in an even-numbered year. But even though Warwickshire go into tomorrow's Royal London final refreshed from having the week off in the County Championship, they'll have the threat of relegation on their minds.

In this summer's Royal London, though, Sam Hain (528 runs at 66.00) and Jonathan Trott (433 at an average of 72.16) have led the way with the bat for the Bears, whose line-up includes a third batsmen with a List A career average over forty - Ian Bell. Surrey, on the other hand, only have one - Kumar Sangakkara. Even if Warwickshire's big artillery fail to hit their target, Tim Ambrose, William Porterfield, Rikki Clarke, Chris Woakes and, if he plays, Laurie Evans, are all more than capable of making match-winning contributions with the willow.

Warwickshire's weakness, if indeed they have one, is their reliance on overseas off-spinner Jeetan Patel (20 Royal London wickets at 20.95 runs apiece this term) and Clarke's capacity for keeping things quiet. Somerset found Oliver Hannon-Dalby difficult to get away in the semi-final, but across this year's one-day competition the former Yorkshire seamer has conceded 5.89 runs per over. The key man, therefore, could well be Woakes, who has been limited to just one appearance in this year's Royal London. The 27-year-old all-rounder, who now looks so at home on the international stage, took 14 ODI wickets for England this summer at 28.57 runs apiece, and with an economy rate of 5.10.

Surrey v Warwickshire - List A Records Sheet

Warwickshire's Chris Wright (98) has a 100th one-day career wicket in his sights.

Zafar Ansari, Mark Footitt, Ravi Rampaul and Jason Roy have been added to the eleven that beat Yorkshire in the semi-finals to make up Surrey's 15-man squad for the Lord's showpiece.

Clearly, given the 10.30am start, the toss is important at this stage of the season. For the record, ten of the captains winning the toss prior to the last 13 Lord's finals have elected to bowl first. Twelve months ago, Gareth Batty followed suit but said, immediately following his side's six-run defeat that, in hindsight, he should have opted to bat. In 1982, however, it was Roger Knight's decision to stick Warwickshire that meant the die was cast before a ball was even bowled. Bears with a long memory will not only want revenge for that result, but also for the 2003 Twenty20 Cup final, in which Warwickshire were humiliated by the Oval outfit. With Warwickshire batting all the way down to number eight, Surrey will either have to set the Bears a testing target or do a job on them with the ball. No team has chased down more than 326 to win a List A game at Lord's. India hold that record, which was set in 2002; while the highest successful chase in a county match is 322, achieved by Warwickshire, against Sussex, in the 1993 NatWest Trophy final. Prediction - the head says Warwickshire, just, the heart says Surrey, but I can easily see it all coming down to who bowls first.

W.Porterfield, S.Hain, J.Trott, I.Bell (capt), T.Ambrose (wk), L.Evans, R.Clarke, C.Woakes, J.Patel, C.Wright and O.Hannon-Dalby.

David Millns and Tim Robinson. (Third umpire - Rob Bailey.).

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